Another Bay Area Barnes & Noble bites the dust

First, it was the Borders in Milpitas on Ginny Cox’s way home. Now her neighborhood Barnes & Noble is going out of business in San Jose’s Eastridge Mall.

What’s a local bibliophile like Cox to do?

“I’m devastated — books are my passion,’’ Cox said, standing beside a table piled with new titles, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s “The Book of Joe,’’ which is on her list.

“This is so convenient for me — it’s less than five miles from my house,’’ she explained sadly, as if watching a dream die.

The 27,700 square-foot Barnes & Noble store is closing its doors Jan. 11 after a going-out-of-business clearance sale that coincides with the holidays. It’s the latest casualty of the brick-and-mortar book store chain, joining Barnes & Nobles in Pleasant Hill, West San Jose and Fremont, among other Bay Area cities, in recent years. Ironically, a change.org online petition is now circulating to save the East San Jose behemoth bookseller.

For the benefit of TPV visitors who are not familiar with East Bay/Silicon Valley suburbs of San Francisco, the locations where Barnes & Noble has closed/is closing are full of people with the financial resources to buy books and the demographic predilection to be avid readers.

Here’s what Zillow says about home prices in San Jose:

The median home value in San Jose is $934,000. San Jose home values have gone up 11.3% over the past year.

And Fremont:

The median home value in Fremont is $967,100. Fremont home values have gone up 6.4% over the past year.